Steven Matz will start in place of Noah Syndergaard on Saturday in Miami against the Marlins, according to Adam Rubin of ESPN New York.
The plan for Matz is to have him fill in for Syndergaard for one turn of the rotation and then the Mets will go to a six-man once Thor renters the rotation.
Syndergaard has already tossed 152 innings this season, easily surpassing the 137 innings he pitched in 2014 for Triple-A Las Vegas. The Mets could also have him skip a second start, but that hasn’t been officially decided on yet.
Matz, 24, looked fantastic on Monday night in his fourth and final rehab start for Double-A Binghamton. The hard-throwing lefty tossed 5 1/3 innings and held Reading to just one hit and two walks while striking out four in a 78 pitch effort.
In his four rehab outings, Matz has given up just two runs on nine hits and three walks in 15 innings while striking out 13 batters.
Before heading to the DL with a partial lat muscle tear on July 10, Matz was phenomenal in two major league starts for the Mets, going 2-0 with a 1.32 ERA and 0.881 WHIP. In 13.2 innings pitched the Long Island native truck out 14 batters.
Honestly, I can’t wait to see this kid pitch again. He provided the team with such a spark during his brief tenure with the Mets, and now that the team is rolling I want to see what else he can do.
Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz… Man oh man, September is going to be awesome!
(Updated 9/1)
